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The Anglican Church is planning to appoint a ‘presidential’ figure to oversee the day-to-day running of the Church.
Dr Rowan Williams made the plans known in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, saying the ‘president’ would oversee the Anglican communion and its 77 million members, leaving the Archbishop of Canterbury free to concentrate on running the Church of England.
Williams, who steps down in December, admitted he may not have got it right and that the job might better be done by two people.
Of the new role, Williams said: “It would be a very different communion, because the history is just bound up with that place, that office [archbishop]. So there may be more of a sense of a primacy of honour, and less a sense that the archbishop is expected to sort everything.”
He expected the presidential figure to be able to travel more easily.
Williams’ tenure as Archbishop has been marred by a conservative and liberal split in the communion. Williams says he thinks he disappointed both groups.
The issues of homosexuality, the ordination of gay bishops and the row over female clergy are some of the contentious issues Williams has tried to deal with.
Williams suggested he did too little to prevent the fracturing of the Anglican church over homosexuality.
“I don’t think I’ve got it right over the last 10 years, it might have helped a lot if I’d gone sooner to the United States when things began to get difficult about the ordination of gay bishops, and engaged more directly,” he said.
“The problem with the job is the demands of the communion have grown and are growing”.
“I don’t think I cracked it”, he said.
With regards to the Islamic sharia law controversy, Williams admitted he failed to find the right words; Williams opined that Islamic shiria law might be recognised by the courts, particularly in family matters.
“I don’t think I, or my colleagues, predicted just how enormous the reaction would be”.
“I made mistakes – that’s probably one of them”, but four years on he does not apologise for the arguments he made, saying there is a case for allowing Muslims the same legal latitude that applies to Christians or Jews.
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